The freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1886-18??, 1887-02-23

W CHtlCc LuCu duQ OOyS iutO your
places. You encouraged the play
ing of games, the stakes being al
ways beer, to the end that winner
andloser should both drink, wheth.
er they wanted to or not. You en-
couraged the pernicious system of
treating, that the man who came
in intending to take one glass
should take dozen, provided
enough of his friends were pres
ent, and you went 80 far as to set
upon your counters free lunches,
always of materials that were
thirst provoking, and prepared
solely to keep the Internal stream
running,
In short, instead of nursing an
evil which people might come to,
you have gone out to thrust it up
on them. There being profit SO
enormous on beer, you have lain
awake nights to devise ways and
means to sell the largest amount
of it possible.
Yours is the cunningest scheme
ever invented for the making of
money. The youth once initiated
into the habit is its bond-slave
forever, unless saved by q miracle.
You can count your gains with a
certainty by estimating the earn
ings of your customers, All you
want to gain wealth is to have Gus.
toners enough, and your principal
business is to MAKE customers.
One made you need never look after
them. They are as certain to come
to you as the sun is TO rise, and
you ard your guild are just as
busy making customers as you are
making the beer to supply them.
Don't try to escape the responsi-
bility of this systematic drunkard
max ing by claiming that it is the
work of the beer.seller,a and not the
beer maker. That won't do. You
own the fixtures in these saloons ;
you selected the fellow who stands
behind the bar, and if ne Goes no:
sell SO much beer each day, the
place is taken from him. You
have scores of such places in Mil
waukee. You have established
them in the same way all over the
country, and you are looking for
more. You not only splotched
your own city all over with these
hell-holes, but you went out into
the towns and villages o. your own
and other states to establish them.
Wherever beer-shop was not you
planted one, each one missionary
of the devil. 1t is pars of the
contract by which the poor devil
holds bis place that he shall make
his canv ass for drunkards thorough.
Your hand does not strike the
blow, but it guides the hand that
does.
You are unwise to institute
comparison between the business
of beer and -four. Your business
is not as legitimate as dealing in
-four, because it is not true, and
never was, of you or any other
man, that one can drink or let it
alone as he chooses. You know, or
ought to, that every drop OF your
stuff that goes into a mans stomach
diseases it, and creates an irresis-
tible craving for more. You know
that every drop taken lessons the
power to resist, and that this sap
ping Of the will power goes on
steadily and irresistibly, till the
victim of it is entirely incapable
OF turning from it: that he becomes
SO helpless in the grasp OF the ap
petite that he will steal his baby'-
shoes to get the means to crafty
it. 10 commence is to continue,
and you induce the commenc-
ing. Your comparison is very
unfortunate. No man eats bread
to the point of congesting his
liver and enlarging his kidneys,
nor can there be an appetite for
bread which requires excess TO
satisfy it. Bread does not create a
diseased stomach which can only
be satisfied with bread, and even
if it did the glutton Can only injure
himself. Men do not get crazy